WSAR NEWS

And A New School Year Begins...

Posted about one month ago by Evan Manchester

At the most recent session of the Fall River School Committee, the District's Chief Financial Officer Kevin Almeida gave a briefing.

"Last Monday, the City Council voted to appropriate a million dollars from health insurance savings this past year,” he said. “We'll be coming forward to you in September with possible recommendations.”

There’s also money from other funding avenues.

“In addition, we have $983,000 in Puerto Rico funds that will have to spent this year. We'll be coming forward with that information, as well, hopefully in the October timeframe."

The end-of-the-year report for fiscal year 2019 is due October 1st.

The District’s Chief Operating Officer told the committee many repairs and renovations were made over the Summer in preparation for the new school year starting in just one week across a plethora of public school buildings.

"It seems that everything, financially, gets deferred,” Ken Pacheco said. “So, there's a lot of maintenance in the building that gets deferred. It's basically nobody's fault except that with the regular funding there's just not enough money.”

He told the committee members they were fortunate to have a surplus.

“We've been lucky enough to have some extra dollars,” Pacheco said. “The superintendent has put aside $100,000 for preventative maintenance so a lot of that work is happening and making a difference."

He reminded the gathered a lack of finances is what caused the putting-off of certain work

"It was being done as well as they could,” Pacheco said. “It's not a slight, what we were doing - we just weren't doing enough."